Leading organizations worldwide count on NetApp for software, systems and services to manage and store their data. Customers value our teamwork, expertise and passion for helping them succeed now and into the future. Visit us at www.netapp.com.

Forbes BrandVoice™ allows marketers to
connect directly with the Forbes audience by enabling them to create
content – and participate in the conversation – on the Forbes digital publishing
platform. Each BrandVoice™ is produced
by the marketer.
More on BrandVoice™ here
, or email us directly at
brandvoice@forbes.com.

Many small and medium businesses have embraced the BYOD revolution. According to a survey by Kaspersky Labs, “Small businesses are less likely to introduce restrictions. For instance, [BYOD] is allowed in almost half the companies (48%) in this category, whereas in big enterprises the figure is 39%.”

Enterprises of all sizes are struggling to manage the sheer range and volume of devices. As SysAid founder Israel Lifshitz told me:

BYOD is not a standard trend. It’s more of a revolution, and 2013 is the year that enterprises are going to have to deal with it.

Before BYOD, the IT manager controlled all of the systems because they owned all of the IT. Now users choose which devices they want to invest in—but the technology hasn’t been available to allow those devices to be managed.

BYOD Risks Assessed

So does this mean that all users’ devices need to be locked down tighter than Charles Manson?

A draconian approach isn’t necessary, Moshe argues. He says it’s possible to assess the risk for each device and simply concentrate on the higher-risk ones.

MDM should let IT managers introduce flexible security policies that allow them to respond to the different levels of security needed for each device:

[MDM] allows IT managers to set flexible policies, based on the user’s device and their behavior with that device.

For example: if your smartphone isn’t [hacked], and it isn’t full of applications that we worry about having on the network, security policies can be very straightforward. But if your phone is more likely to pose a security threat, then we can impose tighter controls on network access such as longer passwords or shorter reauthentication times.

But why would any IT manager want to surrender that degree of control? Moshe and Lifshitz take a more charitable view of systems managers than the common stereotype. Lifshitz laughs:

“IT managers aren’t megalomaniacs.”

IT Needs MDM For BYOD, ASAP

What IT wants are the tools to ensure that employee devices don’t compromise business security. Once that’s in place, BYOD becomes a far less risky proposition—especially if you’re also smart about only managing the significant risks.

Moshe and Lifshitz believe that BYOD is here to stay, thanks to increased productivity. Says Lifshitz:

“If users select their own tools they usually make the best decisions.”

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Simple answer – trust nothing that you do not own and act accordingly.﻿ The rules have changed. If you want to protect your information assets, you cannot trust anyone or anything because they are all a threat until proven otherwise.

Jeff, that is an excellent summation of both the problem and the issues that arise as we try to apply a fix. Indeed, finding the right balance between growth and protection we have to be able to solve the ever thornier issue of trust.

The explosive growth of BYOD means that the corporate IT landscape is no longer just about PCs. IT staff need to enable employees to access corporate systems and data from a variety of devices and platforms, without compromising security or productivity.

One approach to minimizing the security risks and support challenges of BYOD is to separate the data and applications from the personal devices. This can be achieved by using virtualization and cloud technologies to publish corporate Windows applications or virtual desktops and accessing them from a browser.

As we dig into BYOD, we’re finding a lot of the driver behind BYOD is for employees to find a way for their employer to pay for all or part of their data service for their smartphone/tablet. That said, there are good uses for BYOD, but outside of email access, contacts and calendaring, real ROI justified business cases seem to be fairly limited.

Organizations quickly find that data entry from BYOD is very problematic as most BYOD have type-ahead buffers to spell likely words and that feature can play havoc for the inattentive user. This can result in legal issues depending on the data being entered adn for what purpose.

Segregating data from the application is a great approach. Most organizations already have this capability in their browser-based intranets they have built over the past few years. The trick is to allow employees to access their intranet applications via a browser from BYOD.